I thought that after Fallout 3's release, they were going to donate the license to RPGCodex…

Rofl ;-)

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
I don't think they're as cynical as that. I get a feeling they're genuinely giving it their best shot. I also get a feeling it just might not be enough… just like George Lucas's best shot at developing his very own license wasn't enough, for Episodes I-III, that is.

With the big difference that George Lucas actually INVENTED the SW IP. He could do whatever he wanted in the sequels including introducing ridiculous gungans or whatever they were called and it'd still be "genuine Star Wars". That's the privilege of the creator. I'd probably be put in jail if I managed to spray-paint over the Monalisa, but if Da Vinci somehow rose from the dead and did it himself that's his right.

Point is Bethesda are not the minds behind the original Fallouts. They got to do the sequel because they had the highest bid when Interplay's CEO Hervé Caen decided to sell the IP. That's it. They could have hired former devs who worked on F1 and F2 but turned their application down.

And now the "journalists" are praising F3 in their previews for being a lot like "a post-apoc Oblivion". Yet what they don't seem to grasp is that what may be a compliment to them -surely because Oblivion was a commercial success- isn't necessarily a compliment for what the original inventors of the IP tried to create.

So yes they're probably "genuine at giving it their best shot" but the key word here is "their". Their previous commercial success allowed them to take total ownership of the franchise and they also decided that also meant they should impose THEIR view of what a new Fallout game should be like. Yes it's probably in their best interest, yes it's probably going to sell a lot, but where George Lucas could do whatever he wants with his own IP, Bethesda is just raping someone's else artistic creation.